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Fakir Mustache wrote:They seem to be exactly the same as the Squier ones, read the review, the screws are too long.

Warmoth used to have another version several years ago, where they put height screws in a Mustang bridge in 4 of the saddles.

However, I am doing fine with a regular Mustang bridge with a higher E saddle, as I've written before.

I have two of the modified mustang bridges and the screws are not too long on mine. They work perfectly. Maybe the newer ones are different? Or they're not set up properly? Mine have never given me any problems. Also they are not the same as the Squier ones, the warmoth has regular full size mustang saddles with added height adjustment screws, they don't have the tiny saddles that the Squier bridge has.

Maybe get a stock mustang bridge and shim the outer saddles?

1980s Superstang!!


Anyways, I put on a WD cream/black/cream 'guard on it.

It was really a lot of work, it took a several hours of filing 1 or 2 mm from around where the big metal plates were. Also plugged and re-drilled about half the screw holes, even if I really didn't need to necessarily except for maybe two or three of them. I don't recommend anyone doing this, it's much easier to send in your original pickguard to someone who can copy the shape (for example WD, Chandler, Terrapin, maybe someone from the forum), but I already had this scratchplate and didn't want to waste it.

Nice, looks good !!

Would look even better with the Seymour Duncan scrubbed off the pickups too, comes off really easy. Well it did on the white variety.

Reminds me of my Jagstang when I tried to make look a bit more mature, and less toy like. I did a lot of sanding & re-allignment on this too.

Is the plate a different shape? You'd think they would have all the tooling already made and not have to change it at all. But I guess they have to appear to be innovating.

Metal plates are the same shape, just 1 or 1.5 mm closer towards the neck.

The scratchplate I used was made for vintage Fender USA, maybe they do share tooling with modern Mustangs, I don't know the differences in relation to a Fender Japan Mustang.

The newer Squier offset stuff seems to take more cues with regards to pickguard patterns than the Japanese stuff did (AV JM guards fit the Squier Mascis, but some MIJ guards don't fit equivalent CIJ guitars). The Japanese stuff was more or less done independently of Fender US, whereas newer Squier stuff is being dictated a little closer by FMIC because they actually have their own Squier factories and stuff now (though they still use a lot of 3rd party/offbrand bits to save money). I remember one of the American Fender guys had an anecdote about how when they first started making the AVRI series in the late '80s they looked at some Japanese reissue stuff and were blown away by how good it was/how hard they'd have to work to top it, which kind of illustrates the "two different camps" thing going on at that time.

Actually, I got the bridge to work o.k. Flipped it over backwards, the screws facing the pickups. Would have been better if the springs were longer, but it works if you keep the saddles farther away from the screw head and spring, because if it's not close it doesn't raise the screw up to the string.

those are nicee

Fakir Mustache wrote:

Looks great with that pickguard! These certainly seem comparable to the real deal!


Question for the masses:
Given that these were sort of "student" model to begin with, do you guys think the squier VMs are more accurate than the reissues? Obviously build methods are different these days, but what you do you think?

OP, is the vintage yours? Considerably different feeling i'd imagine? Something about basswood is weird to me

I have no idea about the Japanese reissues, never played one. But considering these two are pretty different, the Japanese probably are closer to the originals.

Compared to the vintage Mustang, the basswood body is a lot heavier than the 1966 poplar, but I can imagine that being the other way around as there can be great differences in wood weight. The Squier is not heavy, it's just the Fender is very light. One screw keeps turning around, which is common for basswood I guess, but it's not that important.

Otherwise the neck is much thicker on the Squier. Can't decide which is better, I like both the thick and thin shapes, but I certainly like the bigger frets of the Squier more. I doubt I can tell radius differences.

One thing which is really different on them is the pickups and the sound.

Here is the part you all have been waiting for.

This is one type of vintage 1960s handle, there are other types.


This is a Squier handle:


Vintage handle looks nice on Squier:


These two are completely interchangeable, you can also fit a Squier arm on a vintage Mustang, which may help those who have a Mustang with no arm I guess.

They feel very different. The vintage arm is a bit less versatile than the Squier because of the angle, but they are both good.

Lastly, here is a replacement parts mechanism with original handle:

It is a Jaguar arm and will not fit either of the above guitars. Both of the above arms will fit the mechanism though, because the hole is really big. I have seen Japanese Mustangs with arms like this, except they had a logo on the mechanism.

Sweet

an demo: utoob

no point in embedding because it doesn't make sense unless you read the description